


Star-Crossed

by caramelariana



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: HP: EWE, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-20
Updated: 2012-02-20
Packaged: 2018-02-19 12:21:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2388059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caramelariana/pseuds/caramelariana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One night in the Astronomy Tower Harry realizes that he can't outrun fate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Star-Crossed

Harry Potter was a glutton for punishment; or so his friends were constantly complaining. This one time he might just have to agree with them as his feet guided him toward the astronomy tower. It wasn’t that he wanted to be miserable, he just felt that he owed as much to his previous headmaster.

They had been back at Hogwarts for two months now—a scattering of eighth years. They were a small group who shared every course, but slept in their respective dormitories. It had been a peaceful, if somewhat uneasy semester thus far.

As he reached the top of the steps he stopped short, noticing someone there. He wondered who would want to spend the cold autumn night in the tower and why. He hoped it wasn’t one of the younger years who still approached Harry with no little hero worship. The shoulders of the figure tensed as he noticed Harry’s presence.

“Potter.” It wasn’t a question. The voice was unquestionably familiar and Harry was baffled that the blond knew his identity without sound or sight. He decided not to voice that particular question.

“Malfoy,” he returned instead.

The blond sighed. “Still stalking me then?” There was a strange note to his voice.

Harry bristled at the words. “My life does no revolve around you Malfoy,” he spat.

A dry chuckle escaped the other man. “Thank you for that revelation.”

An uncomfortable silence descended upon them, but could not hold under Harry’s curiosity. “What are you doing up here?” he finally asked.

“I could ask you the same.”

Harry forced himself to take a breath to keep his temper under control. Malfoy’s tone had been neither combative nor condescending. It was simply a statement of fact laced with subtle curiosity. The blond had made himself scarce during their thrown together eighth year, burying himself in his studies and avoiding his peers. He had been an ass the entire time Harry had known him, but Harry had learned the hard way that things weren’t always as they seemed.

Instead of succumbing to the anger that threatened to take hold of him, Harry took a few cautious steps toward the blond. When Malfoy didn’t immediately attack him, he gingerly took a seat beside the other man at the window. “I come up here to think and…remember,” Harry divulged. “I think a lot about Dumbledore. Thank him.”

There was a moment of held breath then—“Me too.” It was barely a whisper, but Harry heard it.

Neither wizard looked at the other, and the tension continued to invade the large space. Even the wide windows could do nothing to dispel the charged energy. Harry tried his best not to fidget. He never did do well with awkward situations, and this quite easily made it to his top three uncomfortable experiences. He just had to say something. “I never thanked you for not giving me away back at the Manor.”

Contemplative silence greeted his statement. After a while Harry was about to get up and forget the whole evening when Malfoy finally responded. “I think you have thanked me several times over since then.”

Harry blinked. Of course, he was right. He had saved Malfoy from the fiendfyre. He had protected him from an errant curse. He had testified in his favor at his trial. “Why didn’t you give me away?” The question had been plaguing him since that terrifying day.

Malfoy stiffened. Harry turned to him and noticed that Malfoy was studying him. Something flickered in those grey eyes. “I didn’t want you to die.”

“Why?”

The grey eyes narrowed. “Good grief, Potter. Do you have a death wish or something?” Malfoy took a deep breath. “Working for the Dark Lord was an absolute nightmare.” He shuddered at a memory. “I wanted him gone. You were the only one who could do that. I needed you alive.”

Harry would be the first to admit that he was not wholly adept when it came to emotions and hidden meanings, but something in Malfoy’s tone made him believe that the blond was lying. At the very least, he was not revealing the whole truth. Still, he let it go for now.

A silence descended upon the tower once again and Harry looked out to the night sky, wondering if those who had died could see him. What would Snape say if he saw his two charges communicating without fists or hexes? What would Dumbledore think of the arrangement for the “eighth” years? Were his parents proud of him?

“You simply can’t die Harry,” Malfoy whispered unexpectedly.

Harry turned sharply to his companion with wide eyes. He did not miss his first name slipping out of Malfoy’s lips.

“Everyone dies, Malfoy,” Harry said softly.

The blond lowered his head, gazing at his open hands. “I know that,” he said roughly. His voice was laced with an emotion Harry could not identify. “You just can’t die yet.”

“I don’t plan to,” Harry said, slightly amused.

“Good,” Malfoy said. It was almost a sigh.

Harry watched his rival closely. He noted with some surprise that the moonlight made the young man look soft, gentle even. He had the sudden urge to run his fingers through the pale hair, and see if it was as fine as it looked. He mentally shook himself. “I thought you wanted me dead?”

Malfoy chuckled drily. “Never,” he said, smiling with a hint of self-deprecation. Harry had seen that look on his own reflection enough to recognize the feeling that came with it.

“Never?” Harry repeated, highly doubting that admission.

“Of course, not,” Malfoy scoffed. “You’re not supposed to die. Not yet. You’re supposed to grow old with—” The blond cut himself off and shook his head.

“With what, Malfoy?” Harry asked quietly. Something told him that he didn’t want to know what Malfoy was going to say—that if he finished that sentence Harry’s life would be forever changed. At the same time he couldn’t resist the curiosity and the idea that maybe the change wouldn’t be so bad. “What were you going to say?”

But Malfoy simply shook his head again. With a rush of confident courage he sometimes felt, he moved closer to the blond and grasped his chin in one hand. Gently, he lifted the pale man’s head and forced him to look at him. “What am I supposed to grow old with?” he asked.

“Who,” Draco choked out.

Harry blinked. “Pardon?”

“You should be asking who.”

He studied Malfoy and found that the grey eyes he always thought suspicious were much deeper than he could have imagined. Harry felt as if he was staring into the other man’s soul, surprised at what he found there. In that moment, he knew that he would never call the other man ‘Malfoy’ again. “Who?” he whispered.

The blond blushed. “Me.” The admission was so soft that Harry wouldn’t have heard it if he weren’t leaning so closely. As it was, the simple word caused Harry’s breath to hitch and suddenly his world was spinning. Everything he knew was being turned upside down. Nothing made sense anymore.

A fog seemed to enter his brain and there was only one thing he could think to do. He kept Draco’s chin in his hand and leaned forward. The moment their lips touched a shot of electricity went through Harry’s body. The kiss caused a magnetic reaction and Harry suddenly couldn’t get enough. He wasn’t sure who deepened the kiss, but the other quickly responded.

When they finally broke apart, they breathed heavily. Draco’s eyes were as wide as Harry supposed his to be. The blond licked his lips. “Harry?” he asked.

Suddenly Harry’s world stopped spinning and everything started to make sense. “I think I’d like that.”

“Like what?” Draco asked, eyes frowning in confusion.

“Growing old with you.”

Draco chuckled sadly. “Don’t mess with me right now, I’m a bit fragile.” Harry could tell how much it took for the wizard to admit that. “You hated me up to the moment you walked into this room tonight.”

“No,” Harry said. “I’ve never hated you.”

“Liar.”

“I don’t lie very well,” Harry argued. “I may have thought I hated you, but I didn’t. I _don’t_.”

Draco shook his head, not believing.

Harry looked up at the stars. “Fate’s a funny thing,” he said suddenly. He could feel Draco’s curious gaze. “It decided before I was old enough to think that I would be a hero someday. It decided that my life would never be mine. And it decided that you would always be in my life.” He looked back at the blond and smiled.

“We could never work as a couple.”

“Why not?”

“Because fate has also decided that any attempt to do that would be difficult.” He too turned to the stars. “Maybe we’re just star-crossed.”

“Like Romeo and Juliet,” Harry asked, smiling. He shrugged. “I don’t know, I don’t think it’s quite that bad. I’ve faced worse.” He grinned at his once enemy.

Draco shook his head. “How can you joke about it?”

“How can I not?” he returned. “Are you so scared of everyone else’s thoughts that you don’t want to see if it can work?”

“I’m more scared that it won’t work.”

Harry stole the other man’s lips again. When they pulled away, Harry didn’t pull back very far. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” he whispered.

“Easy for a Gryffindor to say,” Draco said breathlessly.

“Well,” Harry said, pulling back enough to take in all of Draco’s face. “I’ll drink the poison if you will.”

It should have surprised Harry that Draco understood the reference, but it didn’t. Draco’s cautious but hopeful smile assured Harry that whether they were star-crossed or not, their meeting was fate.


End file.
